The present invention relates generally to self-aligning bearings having a ball-like inner member with a convex outer surface and an outer member having an inner surface with a complementary concave spherical inner face. These types of bearings, which are commonly called "spherical bearings," have been utilized in industry for a substantial period of time. The technological evolution of these type bearings has been directed more in terms of material composition of its various component parts rather than toward basic changes in design concepts. Accordingly, the design advances in spherical bearings have not been substantial in nature and thereby presently limiting their applications.
One area in which the spherical bearings have been extensively applied is the aircraft industry. This is due to the spherical bearing self-aligning characteristic. A typical such application is marrying of a spherical bearing to machine tool or to a landing gear strut or member of an airplane. In these types of applications the outer race is commonly press-fitted and/or staked into a housing or the like, rendering it difficult to remove and/or maintain. When any such maintenance is required, such as replacing of the ball, the entire bearing assembly including the inner and outer race member would have to be removed and replaced by an entirely new bearing assembly. Such an operation could entail substantial expense and down time of the entire machine tool or aircraft.
There are a number of prior art type spherical bearings which have been addressed to this kind of problem. One such type prior art bearing is the "messerschmidt" bearing. A concept of this bearing is that the ball can be removed in the field without disassembling the entire bearing, that is, removing the outer race member from its mounting. The messerschmidt type spherical bearing has proved somewhat unsatisfactory in that its overall bearing surface is decreased by the provision of a slot. This decrease or rather limited bearing surface area has a marked negative effect on the bearing performance characteristics.